


the stone house (you are a fever i am learning to live with)

by natlet



Series: make it the shape of everything you need [1]
Category: Black Sails
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-09
Updated: 2016-08-09
Packaged: 2018-08-07 16:01:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7721008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/natlet/pseuds/natlet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>It's summer when John Silver first comes to the cottage. </em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	the stone house (you are a fever i am learning to live with)

**Author's Note:**

> or, let's start hedging our bets against canon early

*

_and everything is happening  
at the wrong end of a very long tunnel._

*

It's summer when John Silver first comes to the cottage. 

Late June; it's been hot enough for July, but on the trail to the meadow the blackberry canes are just beginning to set fruit - there are things you can hurry and things you cannot, and one thing James has learned by now is the blackberries are of the latter sort. He spots Silver from the bend by the creek, waiting at the top of the hill by the gate. It hasn't rained in a week, and dust hangs heavy in the air, stirred up by his passage; he's looking up the path toward the house, seemingly unaware of James' presence. James considers stepping inside the treeline and waiting, watching to see what Silver might do, if he would continue up the path, if he'd continue at all. In the end, the decision is made for him; Silver turns, and James knows he is seen. 

"You know, I've got to tell you something," Silver says, when James reaches the top of the hill. "You're not an easy man to find." 

"Thank you," James says, and Silver grins. His beard is longer now; sunlight glints off the rings crowded on his slim fingers. He looks like he's done well for himself. 

"I must have spoken with half the merchants and drunks and idle children in town," he says, "and everyone knows Mister McGraw." His voice is warm and low and honey-smooth, grin still lingering, and James more than half thinks he should look away but can't bring himself to do it. "Now that, truly, I did find surprising, though now that I've thought about it I suppose opening an account with the grocer under the name James Flint might be more of a gamble than you're interested in taking. However, what I did not find surprising in the least was that while everybody I spoke with seemed to know you, not one person could tell me where you lived." 

James snorts. "Good." 

"I wanted to see you," Silver says. "I - didn't know for sure if you were still here or if this was even where you'd settled but we needed to refit and we made port last night and I - I had to try. I'm sorry." 

It could be a trick of the sunlight, but his face looks worn, too angular, like he hasn't been sleeping properly. James takes a careful breath. "Well," he says; it's not a rejection, and he doesn't miss the spark of hope in Silver's eyes. "You've seen me. Will you be leaving, or should we go inside?" 

Silver and his distinctive one-two step follow James up the long tree-lined path to the cottage. He's got half a loaf of bread on the table under a cloth, but not much else; he'd intended to make the trip into town that afternoon. He watches Silver take in the bread, and the rest of it; the opened window, the fire banked low in the hearth, the bundled herbs hanging to dry. His gaze is suddenly everywhere but on James. "I can't say I ever imagined you having a kitchen," he says, and his voice bounces strangely in the small room. James turns to put the kettle on, just for something to do with his hands. "To be honest, I can't say I ever imagined you having a home." 

"It is admittedly the first I've had in a long while that hasn't floated." Two cups from the shelf next to the window, and a tea blend the woman in town had put together for him - it's bright and spicy, with a hint of orange. James likes it. It tastes familiar - smooth and warm and comforting, like nights on the jewel-toned seas around Tortuga, the deck swaying gently under him and a stiff salt breeze. "Do you still have her?" 

"The Walrus? Of course. Your cabin has continued to serve me very well." When James turns around Silver is sat at the table, one elbow up and his iron leg extended out in front of him. He smiles, soft; James does not return the expression. "Though I must admit she is in a bit of a bad way at the moment." 

"What have you done to her?" 

"I did nothing. The Spanish armada, however, has splintered her foremast." Perhaps it's a trick of the years but he speaks differently now; his words have always been measured but there's a different sort of care behind them, a stronger sense of consideration. They come slower than they used to. "I thought I'd take the opportunity and careen her while we have a new one fit. You've got a competent carpenter in town, and a very suitable beach a few miles out - " 

"Henderson is an idiot and a drunk, and I can think of five beaches more suited within a day's sail," James says. Behind him, something pops in the fireplace; his throat is tight. "What are you doing here?" 

"I can't stop by to see an old friend?" Silver's eyes on him are careful, his face blank. James doesn't know what he'd fucking expected. 

"It's been three years." 

"I'm sorry, I've been busy. You left me with a bit of a war on my hands."

The kettle boils. James turns, half thankful just for the excuse. He should have told Silver to leave. He doesn't know what he'd been thinking, inviting Silver in. Speaking to him at all. They had parted for a reason. He should never have made it past the damned gate. 

He hears the motion behind him, but when he turns, Silver is closer than he'd expected. He's moving easier now than he had been the last time James had seen him; he'd noticed it on the walk up from the road, how Silver's swinging gait has lengthened, evened. He crosses the rest of the room in another half a stride. 

"I had to see you," he says, soft. His eyes are on James' mouth. "It's been too fucking long. I had to make sure you were all right." 

It's taking a surprising amount of effort to remain standing. To continue drawing breaths, one after another. The lines above Silver's brows are deeper than he remembers them. "And suddenly that matters to you again?" 

"It never stopped mattering." 

James can barely smell the orange in the tea through the sun-soaked leather of Silver's coat. He holds out one of the cups; the metal sears his palm. Silver's fingers trail over the back of his hand as he takes it. Reaches around James to set it back on the countertop beside the other. 

His lips are warm and wind-chapped and James closes his eyes. Of all the things he's had to get used to, not kissing John has been one of the hardest. Even the slightest taste is enough to get lost in. John's hands come up to his chest. One brushes the side of his face. 

"I missed you," James whispers, into the still quiet air between them. John's fingers spread flat against the coarse fabric of his shirt, the touch broad and steady. "I missed you so fucking much." 

"I know." He smooths a hand along James' shoulder, down his arm, presses another slow kiss to his mouth. "I'm sorry." 

James fights hard to breathe without it shaking. He should tell John to leave. He should say, it doesn't matter that he's fucking sorry; he should say, it's been three years. The time for being sorry has passed. 

Instead he says, "Come to bed." 

*

They lay side by side on the narrow mattress, John's shoulder nudged up on top of James' own. The sun is high and the breeze from outside slips warm over James' sweat-damp skin. They're breathing nearly in time. James holds his own, just half a beat. 

John says, "What are you thinking?" 

He's thinking about the Walrus; about how the light shifted across the whitewashed walls of his cabin, reflecting from the sea to the ceiling. Gates had complained it gave him headaches, all that bright, but James had never experienced that particular problem. He's thinking about Nassau, and about the scar curving low across John's belly to his hip. He's thinking about the blackberries. He's thinking about when it might rain.

John says, "Please say something." 

He can feel John looking at him. He's never seen it before - that new scar. It's smooth and grey-white, long since healed. He wonders when John had earned it; that first raid in Virginia Billy had written him about, or later. He thinks about John's hair spread out around him on the white pillowcase, a few curls wrapping down around his throat. He thinks about John asleep in a hammock, face pressed sideways against the canvas. He doesn't look. He doesn't know what he should say.

*

The garden is finally beginning to produce, and quite reliably. Three bright red tomatoes join the greens and an early cucumber in James' basket. He strips the last of the suitable peas from the vine, leaves the ones whose pods have gone woody and dry from age. It's too hot for them now; he'll pull the vines soon and replant in the fall. He'd never paid much attention to the garden Miranda had kept in Nassau, or to the less successful one she'd tried to nurture on a windowsill in London. He'd never realized how much he'd learned. 

The spring flowers have finished blooming; it'll be another week or two before the summer ones begin to pick up the slack. John is watching from the back step. "Here's another thing I never imagined I'd see," he says, as James comes up the path. "The notorious and feared pirate Captain Flint, picking tomatoes." 

He's leaned up against the doorframe, knee bent. He isn't smiling, but he wants to; it's dancing around the edges of his eyes, starting to tug at the corners of his mouth, and James turns away. "If you see him again, tell him to get off of my fucking land," he says, and kneels before a row of plants and hilled earth. John's gaze on him is heavy but the dirt is loose and dry, crumbling easily in his hands, giving up the smooth-skinned golden potatoes growing clumped beneath the plant's broad leaves. They're small, still, but they'll do. By the time he looks back, even the promise of a smile has vanished. He doesn't need to explain himself. "That isn't who I am anymore," he says anyway.

"Then this is quite the day of surprises," John says, "because you certainly do look like him." 

"Do I." He shoulders past John into the house, blinking through the sudden darkness. He'd intended the bread and his meager harvest to serve as his own meal. John's arrival presents a complication. _If he's going to stay,_ James thinks, and isn't sure which side of that particular fence he'd prefer they fall on. 

"You sound like him, too," John says. James listens as he crosses to the table, pulls out a chair. He's dragging that leg more than he had been earlier. "And you are absolutely acting like him." 

James knows without checking the root cellar is effectively empty. There are fish in the creek, but the hour is wrong; they won't be interested in biting until later this evening, and he hadn't planned on investing that sort of time today. He hadn't planned on today at all.

"You fucked me like he used to, as well," John says, and James closes his eyes. 

"I've got to go into town," he says. "If you intend to stay for dinner." 

"Will you have me?" John says, quietly, behind him. 

His eyes are soft, his face open, and James sets the basket down on the table in front of him a bit harder than is strictly necessary. "Make yourself useful," he says, and goes before John has a chance to respond.

*

He could take the shortcut through the meadow, but today, the main road holds its own appeal. Sweat beads at the back of his neck. Perhaps, he thinks, he should've disregarded the clouds gathering on the horizon, taken the even longer route along the bluff. He's almost back to the house and he is still blindingly, blisteringly angry. 

_Paid in full,_ the shopkeep had said, when James had inquired about the status of his account. Paid in fucking full, and then some. More than twice as much credit as he'd had debt previously. _An anonymous benefactor,_ the shopkeep had said, and refused to give James a name or even a description - but it isn't as though he truly needs one. It isn't as though there are many possible candidates. 

The presumption. The liberty it implied. He doesn't need Silver's help. He doesn't need his fucking charity. 

He doesn't need Silver, at all, for anything. Not any more. 

He shoulders his way into the cottage, drops the bundle he carries on the bench by the door. "What the fuck were you thinking?" 

Silver is sat at the table, where James had left him. The basket from the garden is in front of him, untouched, and he's got a book open across his lap; he'd got it from the shelf in the bedroom. James recognizes it by the binding. He more than half wants to rip it from Silver's hands. "I was thinking it's been three years since you've been on the account," Silver says easily, calmly, without looking up, "and perhaps you'd appreciate not having to worry about where your next meal is coming from for a while." 

"You had no fucking right - " 

"Evidently, I was mistaken." 

"Evidently." 

"It's nothing you didn't have a hand in earning, if that's what you're so worried about." Silver turns a page. "Your last raid netted us more than enough to provide for - " 

"It's fucking blood money." 

"Yes, and I don't seem to recall you having any problems with that before." 

"This isn't before," James says, and Silver looks up, finally. 

"Do you think you need to remind me?" His voice is low, dark in a way that's familiar to James, though not through any first-hand experience; dark in a way he's heard tell of, heard whispered about, _they say he's eight feet tall and once killed a man with -_ "It was months before I stopped looking over my shoulder to ask your opinion. Before I stopped thinking I'd heard your footsteps on deck. Before the men would follow my orders without hesitation. I've spent the past three years living in your shadow, I am perfectly fucking aware this isn't before, do you honestly think you need to remind me?" 

James had spent his last night on board the Walrus alone with her; the men had slept while he'd committed to memory the swoop of her rail under his hand, the sea against her hull and her deck beneath his boots, the billowing crack of her sails. He'd told her he loved her. He'd told her he was sorry. "I left all that behind," he says. He thinks of the men who had managed to set aside their personal differences long enough to bid him farewell - Degroot, Joji, Billy and Ben. He thinks of the men who hadn't. He doesn't want to hold Silver's gaze, but he can't seem to look away, either. "The account. The war. The crew. The fucking ship." 

The fighting, he doesn't say; the smoke and blood and gunpowder, the rage and the fear. Silver huffs out a quiet laugh. "Me," he adds.

"You wouldn't come with me!" It hits right where he means it to - Silver shifts back, like the blow had landed physically. Part of James thinks that perhaps he should feel guilty, but he doesn't. "I asked you to. I fucking begged you to turn your back on all that and come with me, and you said no. You wouldn't leave it." He takes a long, shaking breath. "You're goddamn right I left you. You gave me no choice." 

Silver is quiet for what feels like a long time; James lets himself clench one hand into a fist, nails digging into his own palm, forces himself to relax it again slowly. "I'm sorry," Silver says eventually, and his voice is soft and bare. "I shouldn't have come here. This was a mistake." 

"Perhaps it was." 

He hadn't brought anything with him; taking his leave is as simple as setting the book on the table, getting himself to his feet. He pauses in the doorway, though, turns to meet James' eyes one last time. "I loved you, you know," he says, quiet. "I think maybe I always will." 

James doesn't answer. He doesn't know what to say. It had never been enough before. He wasn't foolish enough to believe it might be now. 

He's heard that latch click into place a thousand times, but today he could almost believe it sounds different. The leather-bound book on the table is out of place, draws his gaze; he knows that John hasn't left his prints on the cover, that if he goes to the bedroom he won't find an impression of John's body still in the sheets - but. 

Outside, the sun is dropping steadily toward the horizon, the light along the path finally warmer than the air. It doesn't take him long to catch up to John, though he tries to keep himself from running more than the last few steps. John doesn't acknowledge his arrival, keeps up his pace; it's quick enough James has to fight to catch his breath, but he matches John, stays alongside him anyway.

"Why did you come here?" he asks, finally. They're most of the way to the gate before he manages to get it out. "Why now?" 

"Because we're losing," John says - it comes out sharp, like it's something James has torn from him. "When I - agreed to this, when I said I'd play this role for you, I thought - "

"I never asked you to do that," James says; "I never wanted you to get involved - " 

"But I did," he says. "I fucking did, all right? And you know damn well I did it for you, and I thought you'd be there." 

"I didn't - "

"You didn't have to ask," John says. "You were my captain. You were my fucking partner, and you - you made me believe we could do this, and we'd do it together, and then you left me to sort it out on my own and I can't, all right? I tried, but I can't do this without you, I don't - " He takes a quick breath, and James doesn't reach for him, even though he wants to. Especially because he wants to. "I thought if I came to see you," John says, softer; "If I could just see my captain, perhaps he could make me believe in it again. But he's not here, is he." 

John's gaze on him is heavy, searching. "I'm sorry," James says. It's the closest he can get. 

"Don't tell me you're sorry," John says. "Tell me you still give a shit about me. Tell me you ever did." 

He can hear the frogs calling from the creek, the wind starting to pick up in the treetops. John's breath coming fast and sharp and ragged, matching his own. "How could you even ask me that?" he says. "How has that ever been in question?" 

"How could you walk away?" 

He thinks about John at the Walrus' rail, sword in hand, blood spattered across his face. He thinks about John in his bed, the solid warmth of him at James' side, the light brush of his fingers through James' beard. "Every day," he says, "every fucking day for three years I've wondered if that wasn't a mistake. Do you think I made that decision lightly?"

"I don't know how you made it at all," John says. He'd been the last thing James had seen as the launch carried him away; the Walrus slipping away toward the horizon, and John standing motionless on her quarterdeck. He'd waved goodbye. John hadn't. 

"Do you think I wanted to?" he says. "I had to, John. I didn't want to leave you. But I had to leave the rest of it, or I - " His voice catches, and he makes himself take a breath. Even now, it turns his stomach, clenches tight around his throat when he remembers - the cannons, the men going over the rail, the thought of John laid out on the deck instead of shouting orders from the wheel. "I couldn't stay. I couldn't see another way. I don't care if you want to believe in Nassau or the crew or the fucking war, but I - I had no other choice. I need you to believe that." 

John looks at him closely, carefully, and James doesn't look away. "You are the one thing I never stopped believing in," John says, soft, and he kisses James - there, in the open, the cooling breeze winding around them, the fading light dappled through the trees. He tries to remember the last time they kissed like this, and can't. 

"Don't leave," he says into John's mouth, and John's hand clenches tighter in the thin fabric of his shirt. "Please." 

"Not yet," John says, and turns them back toward the house. 

*

John's arms are tight and solid around him, his fingers tracing soft and meandering over James' skin. He presses closer against John's chest, listens to his heart beat, listens to the rain lashing at the window. "When do the men expect you back?" he says, eventually. He doesn't want to hear the answer. He can't stop himself from asking.

"About six hours ago," John says, and James can hear the smile in his voice. He turns to press a kiss against John's throat, feels John's hand smooth down his back to his waist. "We're to set sail as soon as our new mast is in place." 

"I hope you made it clear to Henderson you meant for that to occur before the new year," James says, and John laughs. 

"I made it clear the sooner the work was finished, the sooner I'd remove my very threatening pirate ship from his peaceful harbor, yes." For a moment, he's quiet; James slides his hand low across John's belly, rubs his thumb over the point of John's hip. "Teach is expecting us, or I'd - " 

"I understand," James says. John kisses his hair, and James can't ignore how his breath catches. He can barely remember why he'd want to. He'd missed this - this ease between them, John's voice wrapping around him, warm and gentle and dearly familiar. He hadn't let himself notice until just now. "After that," he says. "Do you think you might - see fit to threaten our harbor again?" 

"Should I take that as an invitation?" 

"One that perhaps expires a bit sooner than another three years from now," James says. "But - yes. If you're willing." 

"The question isn't whether or not I'm willing," John says. "It's how long must I wait to keep the men from getting suspicious." 

"If they're not already." 

"Perhaps they should be," John says. "A bit of mystery surrounding where I've been might be good for them." 

James laughs quietly. "Until they decide you've been communing with the devil to ensure your victory, or something equally ridiculous." 

"You might be surprised to hear that while I still prefer being liked, I've come to appreciate the value in being feared." 

"We could anoint you with some berry juice, if you'd like," James says. "In the darkness, they might mistake it for the blood of innocents." 

"Mm." John shifts, rolls toward him, pulling him closer. "I think I'd prefer to see what they've come up with in the morning," he says, and James smiles, lets his hand slip down from John's hip, lower.

"Should I take that to mean you're mine until then?" 

"It doesn't matter where I am," John says, almost too serious. "I'm yours always." 

James doesn't know how to answer. He's not sure he could get the words out. He leans up to kiss John instead, and doesn't worry that it might seem insufficient - he's confident, for once, that John will understand.

**Author's Note:**

> as per usual the sun rises and sets and this has a better conclusion than "and then they kissed alot and it was rly nice the end" entirely because of [jackie](http://twobrokenwyngs.tumblr.com)
> 
> super-pretentious parenthetical title and quote are from richard siken's _[straw house, straw dog](http://youngerpoets.yupnet.org/2008/04/17/straw-house-straw-dog-crush-by-richard-siken/)_


End file.
